The Tale of Foggybog the Frippilous Wiggle
by OldFashionedGirl95
Summary: "Some time ago, when the world was a nicer place to live—though I won't say it didn't snow regularly or that the marshes didn't flood or that the Giants didn't come down now and again past the Shribble, looking for tender young wiggles to eat—there lived a wiggle named Foggybog." A tale they tell to flighty young wiggles on sunny days when the birds are singing.


_Posting this here for archival and for those who don't get over to LJ, with thanks to Starbrow, who flitted through my bobance-lacking story and left wiggleish turns of phrase wherever she touched, and to WillowDryad, who suggested the final ending._

After the first week, the adventure wore off, and there came a day when Jill thought she simply _could not_ bear to scald, pick, clean, and cook another moorfowl. There is an unforgettably revolting smell that arises when a dead bird is plunged into boiling water, a smell that doesn't go away, and that evening, when Scrubb and the Marsh-wiggle left to find dinner, Jill sat down and cried.

She had not quite finished by the time they returned.

"I say, Pole," came Scrubb's voice. "What's up?"

"Nothing," she said, raising her head and hastily drying her eyes. "You wouldn't happen to have another peppermint about, would you?"

"Sorry. All out. What's wrong?"

She sniffed and found a handkerchief. "Nothing's wrong," she said presently, "and I would certainly rather be here than back There, but oh, I _am_ so tired of moorfowl. Couldn't we have some bacon and biscuit, just this once?"

"You know we've got to save it as long as we can," said Scrubb.

"I know, but it feels so dreary to eat the same stewed fowl every day. Isn't there any other way to fix it?"

"We could try to roast them in the coals," said Puddleglum from where he was starting the fire, "but you probably wouldn't like it."

"How would we do that?"

"Daub them with clay," he said. "Of course, if the fire runs out or if it rains, the birds won't cook through. Still, half-raw would be a change. I saw a patch of clay in the bank of the last stream. It looked muddy and full of sticks and bark, but one can't be too picky."

So Puddleglum used Jill's knife and cleaned the fowl while she and Scrubb gathered clay in the skillet. Then the Wiggle showed them how to smear the birds thickly with clay, covering them feathers and all, and when they had been set to bake in the fire and hands were washed all around, Puddleglum lit his foul pipe and Scrubb said,

"When I was in Narnia before, they used to tell stories on dreary days."

"Oh, do let's," said Jill, pulling her cloak about herself and scooting closer to the fire.

"I know a tale," said the Wiggle mournfully, "but I don't suppose you'd want to hear it.

"Not if it's an unhappy one," said Scrubb.

Puddleglum sucked in his cheeks. "I wouldn't call it _sad_. It isn't exactly _sad_. In fact, _I'd_ say it's dreadfully cheery."

"Oh, all right," said Scrubb. "Fire away."

So Puddleglum began, blowing dribbles of black smoke from his pipe and speaking deliberately. "Some time ago, when the world was a nicer place to live—though I won't say it didn't snow regularly or that the marshes didn't flood or that the Giants didn't come down now and again past the Shribble, looking for tender young wiggles to eat—some time ago, there lived a wiggle named Foggybog.

"He was barely more than a pollywiggle, and he was the most frippilous and flighty young wiggle I ever heard of (though of course there may have been others). In winter when the marshes froze, he went skating. In spring, when the marshes flooded, he went swimming. In summer, when he could neither skate nor swim, he sat in the door of his wigwam and sang. I don't suppose you'd want to hear one of his songs?"

"No—" said Scrubb, but Jill elbowed him and said, "Yes, please."

Puddleglum sighed. "You'll think me horribly flighty, I daresay, but such seems to be my lot in life." And he sang a slow, minor song that went something like this:

_The birds were singing in the morning  
And the myrtle and the ivy were in bloom  
And the sun o'er the hills was a-dawning  
'Twas then that I laid her in the tomb._

Jill choked, seized by a sudden desire to laugh.

"There are twenty-four verses in all, each more cheery than the last," said Puddleglum, "but like as not you'd rather not hear them."

"If it's all the same to you," said Jill as steadily as she could, "I'd like to hear the rest of the story."

Puddleglum sighed. "I didn't think so. You may not know that young wiggles are disposed to be flighty and high-spirited. They have a dreadful go of it for a few years and keep many an old wiggle fearing the worst for them until the young ones settle down to proper soberness. But even when Foggybog reached the age when pollywogs and pollywiggles build their own wigwams, he showed no sign of settling down. He decided his wigwam would be the largest in the marshes. He sang as he marked the outline on the ground and whistled as he dug the post holes.

"'Foggybog,' said an old wiggle who stopped by to see how he was progressing, 'the wider you build your wigwam, the taller the top must be. And this spot is too low—it'll flood up to your knees come spring. I'm only saying it for your own good, Foggybog.'

"But Foggybog laughed in his face, and the old wiggle went away wondering what the new generation was coming to. 'It ain't natural, such gaity,' said the old wiggle to himself. 'Mark my words: that Foggybog will come to no good end.'

"Foggybog had a grand time that summer, and no good ever comes of that. At night, he slept in his ma's wigwam, but during the day he built his own. When the post holes were dug, he borrowed an ax and skipped away down south to cut poles and vines; when he returned he left the poles in a heap and went fishing, though his singing usually frightened away the fish. Thinking to avoid work in thatching, he cut his poles so short that even he, not a tall wiggle, could barely stand upright in the center of the wigwam frame. By then, the days were cooling, and the old wiggle forecast snow every morning, so Foggybog wove the vines in any-which-way and went to cut thatch.

"It took him some time to find the borrowed ax, for he'd dropped it somewhere after using it last, and when he did find it, the edge was rusted away, as it was sure and certain to be after such a wet season. He ground it hurriedly and waded to the nearest rushbed, where he cut armloads of terribly soggy thatch and carried them back to his wigwam.

"A pollywiggle learns proper wigwam-thatching from helping his pa, but Foggybog was always up to no good, lilypad-jumping and things of that sort, whenever his pa and ma rethatched the wigwam, so of course he made a terrible muck of it on his own. He knew enough to tie the rushes into bundles and the bundles to the vine framework; but he had not cut enough rushes and he ran out several times and had to cut more; then it rained, and he didn't let the thatch dry before continuing. At last the wigwam was covered, very badly indeed. The next day, he went up on the moors and cut heather for his bed—the worst kind of heather too, the scratchy kind—and that night he moved into his wigwam.

"Now, if Foggybog had been an industrious wiggle, he would have finished his wigwam in a week or two, but what with dawdling and dillydallying, winter caught him unawares and unprepared. The day after he moved into his wigwam, he went fishing to celebrate. Foggybog never caught many eels, for he usually sang while fishing. Nevertheless he caught a few small eels and some mudfish, and while he was cooking his stew the old wiggle came by.

"'I dare say 'twill snow tonight, Foggybog, and you can't have dried much food for winter. What shall you do when the marshes freeze?'

"But Foggybog the Frippilous Wiggle answered with a rhyme. 'When I can catch no eels to stew or frogs to friccassy, I'll not be glum nor will I beg—I'll live on turtle pie!'

"So the old wiggle went back to his own wigwam, muttering about pollywogs these days and what was the world coming to, when wiggles couldn't even rhyme properly? I daresay word got around that Foggybog was a few eels short of a stew, for after that the other wiggles left Foggybog well enough alone. 'Might be catching, such frippolity,' they said. 'One never knows. Can't be  
too careful.'"

"It did, in fact, snow that night, and there was a hard freeze. Foggybog's pot of stew lasted only through the next morning, and if the smoke had not driven him from his wigwam in search of food, hunger soon would have. But the marshes were frozen, the frogs and the turtles slept burrowed in the mud underneath the ice, and though a last flock of geese flew overhead about noon, Foggybog found he had misplaced every single one of his arrows.

"The snow fell thick and fast all that day, and at evening, he had nothing but some limp grasses, which he stewed over his fire, wishing he had listened to the old wiggle's words when building his wigwam. The roof was too low and the wigwam too wide, so that the smoke got in Foggybog's eyes while his back shivered in the draught. But he was determined to make the best of it, and after banking the fire he went to bed.

"He was awakened in the night by a crash and a terrible weight atop him. The wet, heavy snow had built up on his wide, soggy, shallow-roofed wigwam until the whole haphazard structure collapsed. It was still snowing, but Foggybog the Frippilous Wiggle had said he would not beg, and he did not. He rooted around in the snow until he found his pipe and a few other oddments, tucked them in his hat, and set off for the south."

Puddleglum stopped, and it was several moments before the children realized he wasn't going on. "What happened to him, Puddleglum?"

The marshwiggle sucked in his cheeks. "That's the end of the story."

Jill's mouth dropped open. "But that—that's a horrible ending!"

Puddleglum blew a dribble of smoke from his pipe. "I didn't say you'd like it, did I?"

"But what happened to Foggybog?" she repeated, and Puddleglum would only say that he had told the story and they didn't have to like it.

"Oh, come on," she said. "Scrubb, let's think of a happy ending for Foggybog. Where did he go?"

Scrubb wrinkled up his forehead and thought a moment. "I can't think of any—oh, I know. It was the first snow, wasn't it?"

Puddleglum puffed moodily on his pipe and would not answer.

"Yes," said Jill.

"Lucy said they used to have a great dance on the night of the first snow in Narnia, and a feast, too, whenever they weren't dancing. Maybe Foggybog found some Narnians—Dwarves and Fauns and things, you know—dancing, and they fed him."

"And he lived out the winter comfortably with them! Oh, that's a much nicer ending."

"No good, if you ask me," said Puddleglum.

"Pardon?"

"I said, it's no good to change a story like that. It's told the way it's told for a reason, and that's to teach young ones (like you two) things (like common sense) before it's too late. I daresay we'll all end up like Foggybog, what with nothing to eat and damp in the tinderbox and snow before long. I only say it for your own good." And he gave a gloomy sigh.


End file.
